Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Supreme Authority of the Word Over the Traditions of Men (Matthew 15:1–11)

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The Supreme Authority of the Word Over the Traditions of Men (Matthew 15:1–11) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I am. I'm so glad you decided to spend
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  some time with us today as we open up the scriptures.
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  Yeah, it is great to be here with you all.
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  We are two friends who love the Lord, love His word, and well,
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  Full disclosure right up front so you know where we stand.
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  We hold fast to the historic Reformed faith.
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  Right, as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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  Which means we believe theology really matters.
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  The Bible is the only rule for faith and practice, and getting
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  God right changes, well, pretty much everything about how we
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  live. It changes the whole picture.
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  It really does. And today we are walking into a
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  bit of a crime scene. We are looking at Matthew
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  chapter 15 verses one through 11.
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  A crime scene is a good way to put it.
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  It is also a courtroom and maybe a biology lab, all rolled into
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  one really intense narrative. I mean, if you grew up in
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  church, you have likely heard this passage referred to as the
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  hand washing. Incident, right?
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  The hand washing thing, Yeah. And it's so easy to file it away
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  under Bible trivia or just think of it as Jesus being annoyed
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  with people who are, you know, obsessed with hygiene.
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  Which is how a lot of folks read it today.
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  But. When we really look at the
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  sources, the commentaries, and the historical context of Second
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  Temple Judaism, we realize this is heavy.
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  It is a massive collision. It feels like a heavyweight
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  title fight to me. We are witnessing a clash
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  between Jesus and the religious elite and it is not just a
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  disagreement over etiquette or or soap.
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  Not at all. It is a fundamental battle over
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  authority. The main question on the table
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  is really about who owns your conscience?
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  Who gets to define what is righteous?
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  Is it God speaking through his law?
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  Or is it men establishing their own traditions?
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  That is the central question of this whole deep dive, and before
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  we even get into the arguments or the specific accusations, I
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  want to set the scene because the context here is huge.
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  I set it up for us. Matthew gives us a detail that
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  might seem like a throwaway line to a modern reader, but it is
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  actually the key to the whole tension.
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  He tells us that scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus from
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  Jerusalem. OK, so for someone just reading
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  through quickly, that might sound like a basic travel
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  detail, like saying somebody came from New York or London.
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  Right, just a geographical note. But it is much more than that,
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  isn't? It it is so much more.
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  You really have to understand the geography and the politics
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  of the day to feel the weight of that statement.
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  Because Jesus is up in Galilee, yeah.
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  He is in the rural N It is the countryside.
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  It is very far away from the center of institutional
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  authority. And Jerusalem is the total
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  opposite of that. Jerusalem is the center of
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  theological weight. It is the center of temple
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  worship. It is the Vatican, the Supreme
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  Court and the Ivy League all wrapped into one location.
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  So these men did not just happen to be in the neighborhood on
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  vacation. No, they didn't just pop over
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  for a cup of coffee and a chat. This is a trek.
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  It is a multi day trip over dusty, dangerous roads.
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  You do not make that kind of trip just to say hello.
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  You certainly don't. This is an official delegation.
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  It is an inquiry. Honestly, you could even call it
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  an inquisition. Because Jesus has been making
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  waves in the North. Huge waves, healing people,
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  feeding thousands and teaching with an authority that does not
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  cite the usual rabbis. He wasn't playing the academic
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  game of quoting this scholar who quoted that scholar.
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  Right. So the credentialed authorities
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  in Jerusalem, the heavy hitters, decide they need to March up
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  there and inspect this unauthorized teacher.
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  They are moving from observation to prosecution.
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  They are actively looking for a reason to indict him.
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  Precisely, they are not there to listen and learn.
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  They represent the the institutional religious
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  establishment and they are looking for a fight.
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  They want to find a leak in the boat so they can sink it and
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  they. Think they have found one right
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  here in chapter 15. Let's get into the text then.
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  Section 1 The accusation Matthew 15 verses 1 and 2.
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  The Pharisees asked Jesus quote, Why do your disciples transgress
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  the tradition of the elders, for they do not wash their hands
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  when they eat. OK, let's unpack this word
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  transgress. Yeah, that sounds really
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  serious. It is nuclear language.
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  Usually in Scripture you use the word transgress when someone
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  breaks God's covenant. Like you transgress the law of
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  Moses. Right, you transgress the
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  command of the Lord. It is a legal term usually
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  reserved for sinning against God Himself.
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  But notice what they're accusing the disciples of transgressing
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  here. Yes, not the Law of Moses.
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  No, they are accused of transgressing the tradition of
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  the elders. Which brings up a massive
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  concept we need to tackle. What is this tradition of the
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  elders? This is what is known as the
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  oral law, right? The peridosis in Greek.
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  That is the term peridosis, things handed down.
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  The Pharisees believed and taught that when Moses received
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  the written Torah on Mount Sinai, the 10 commandments, the
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  Pentateuch, that God also whispered a secret oral
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  explanation. Like a supplementary rule book?
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  A set of additional rules passed down verbally.
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  They believe this oral tradition was passed from Moses to Joshua
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  to the elders, to the prophets, and eventually down to the
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  Rabbi's of their day. That is incredibly convenient
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  for them. It means the Rabbi's hold the
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  exclusive keys to interpreting the Bible.
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  It is the ultimate claim to institutional control.
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  To the Pharisees, this oral law was divine.
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  It stood right alongside Scripture.
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  But in practice, as we are going to see, it often stood above
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  scripture. Always it became the lens
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  through which they read everything else.
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  If the written word said one thing, but the tradition
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  explained it away, the tradition one out every single time.
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  Then the specific issue here is hand washing.
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  Now I have to clarify this for everyone listening because we
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  live in a post COVID world. We are totally obsessed with
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  hand washing. We are constantly using hand
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  sanitizer. Right.
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  If I see a guy making my sandwich at a deli and he hasn't
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  washed his hands, I'm walking out.
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  So we might look at this and think, well, the Pharisees were
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  just ahead of their time on germ theory.
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  We have to completely suspend our modern brains here.
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  This is absolutely nothing to do with bacteria or viruses or
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  hygiene. They didn't even know what a
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  germ was. The Pharisees knew nothing about
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  germs. This is a ceremonial washing.
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  It is a ritual. The idea was that the world is
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  full of invisible defilement. Like spiritual dirt.
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  Yeah, if you go to the marketplace, you might brush
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  against a gentile, you might touch a coin that a known Sinner
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  touched earlier that day. It is almost like spiritual
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  radiation. That is a brilliant analogy.
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  They viewed defilement as this invisible residue that sticks to
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  you and if you eat your bread without performing the ritual,
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  which involved pouring water in a very specific way, often up to
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  the wrist. You were effectively eating that
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  spiritual radiation. You were consuming the
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  defilement and making your very soul unclean.
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  It seems like they had built a system where they were just
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  trying to be extra careful. You hear people talk about
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  putting a fence around the law. Was that their intention?
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  That was the logic early on. They thought if we make extra
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  rules that keep us far away from breaking the actual law, we will
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  be safe. Like a buffer zone?
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  Exactly a buffer zone. So if the law says be holy, the
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  tradition says wash your hands in the specific way to ensure
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  you are holy. Or if the law says do not commit
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  adultery, the fence says do not even be alone in a room with a
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  woman who isn't your wife. The logic is that if you never
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  cross the fence, you will certainly never break the law.
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  Sounds wise on paper. I mean, it sounds like they're
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  just trying to be really pious and honor God.
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  It sounds incredibly pious. They are saying we are so holy
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  we will not even get close to sin.
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  But here is the massive trap. Eventually you forget that the
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  fence is something you built yourself.
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  You start treating the fence as if God built it.
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  And suddenly, if someone jumps the fence, even if they have not
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  broken the actual biblical law, you treat them like a heretic.
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  The fence essentially becomes the law itself.
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  And here in Matthew 15, the fence has become a weapon.
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  Notice that by attacking the disciples, they are really
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  attacking the rabbi. Yes, the wording is specific.
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  Why do your disciples do this? It reflects directly on the
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  teacher. In that culture, a student was a
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  direct reflection of his master. Completely.
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  If the disciples are ignoring the traditions of the elders,
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  the implication is that Jesus is either negligent in his teaching
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  or, worse, he's intentionally subversive.
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  They are treating these human customs as core identity
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  markers. They are saying we are the pure
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  ones. We wash our hands and since
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  Jesus group doesn't do it, they are labeling him as unclean and
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  lawless. So Jesus is completely backed
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  into a corner here. They have the institutional
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  backing, they have the tradition, and they have the
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  accusation ready to go. Most people in that situation
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  would just apologize. Most people would say oh sorry
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  guys, we forgot our water jars. We will do better next time.
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  Let me talk to the guys. But Jesus isn't most people.
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  This is where the narrative gets really incredible.
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  Section two of our discussion. The counter interrogation.
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  He completely refuses to accept their premise.
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  He doesn't even answer the hand washing charge.
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  He refuses to answer the specific charge about hand
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  washing immediately because he sees the root of the problem.
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  They think tradition sits in the judge's seat.
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  Jesus knocks tradition right off that chair.
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  He responds with a counter question.
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  In verse three he says, why do you transgress the commandment
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  of God for the sake of your tradition?
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  That is a mic drop moment. He uses their own word
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  transgress right back at them. He does, and look at the sharp
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  contrast he sets up. On one side you have your
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  tradition, the pareidosis, things handed down by men.
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  On the other side you have the commandment of God, the entity
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  divine authority. He places human custom and
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  divine law on a direct collision course.
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  He is showing them that these two things are not friends, they
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  are at war. He is saying we are not
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  comparing 2 ancient traditions here, we are comparing what men
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  say versus what God says. And he identifies their motive
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  so clearly, he says, for the sake of your tradition.
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  That implies a choice, doesn't it?
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  It implies A deliberate exchange.
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  This is the real danger. It is not that they just happen
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  to like their traditions. It is that when tradition and
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  scripture clashed, they actively chose to save their tradition
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  and sacrifice the Word of God. They threw God's word under the
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  bus to keep their system running.
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  They were willing to disobey the Creator to maintain the system
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  created by the creature. Jesus is exposing that they are
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  not the guardians of the law like they claim to be.
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  They are the Breakers of the law.
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  That is a terrifying thought for anyone religious, that you can
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  be so wrapped up in religion that you actually become an
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  enemy of God's law. It should make all of us pause.
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  But Jesus doesn't just leave it abstract.
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  He brings a specific case study to the table to prove his point.
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  This takes us to section three of our deep dive.
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  He brings up the 5th Commandment.
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  He goes straight to Exodus 20, verse 12, honor your father and
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  your mother. And he also cites Exodus 21,
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  verse 17, which is the death penalty for reviling parents.
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  He is showing the God takes the care of parents with lethal
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  seriousness. This is a moral imperative.
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  It is not a helpful suggestion. Now, when we say honor, I think
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  sometimes we just think that means being polite, you know,
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  saying yes or no, ma'am, and sending a nice card on Mother's
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  Day. Right.
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  Just basic respect. But in this context, and in the
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  Greek word Tina used here, it means way more than that.
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  Much more, It certainly includes respect, but in the Jewish
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  context and the biblical usage, honoring parents specifically
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  included tangible financial and physical care for them in their
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  old age. It meant being their Social
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  Security system. There was no government pension.
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  When your parents couldn't work anymore, you were obligated by
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  God's law to feed them, house them, and clothe them.
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  That is what honor looks like practically.
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  So Jesus establishes the standard you must take care of
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  your parents, but then he exposes this loophole.
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  They invented this thing called Corban.
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  Can you explain how this mechanism worked?
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  Because when I read it sounds like a sketchy tax shelter.
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  It is essentially a spiritual tax shelter.
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  It is truly sinister when you get down to it.
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  The word Corbin means a gift devoted to God.
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  OK, the Pharisees had developed a tradition regarding vows.
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  A man could look at his money, his property or his estate,
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  resources that he should have been using to support his aging
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  mother and father, and he could pronounce a vow over them.
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  So what did he actually say? He could say whatever you would
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  have gained from me is Corbin. So he dedicates it all to the
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  temple. Technically, yes, he declares it
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  sacred. Once it is vowed to God, it
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  cannot be used for mundane things, and since feeding your
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  parents is considered a mundane use of funds, he can claim his
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  hands are tied. He can say, mom, dad, I would
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  love to help you with renter food but I can't.
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  This money is holy, now it belongs to God.
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  That is the excuse. But here is the kicker, right?
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  Does he actually have to hand the money over to the temple
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  right then and there? Often no.
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  That is the trick. That is the scam of the whole
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  thing. The rabbinic tradition allowed
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  for deferred gifts. Unbelievable.
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  He could often keep the property or the money for his own
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  personal use during his lifetime, or just defer the
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  actual giving until after his death.
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  So it allows him to hold onto the asset while claiming he is
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  too pious to help his parents. It frames basic stinginess and
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  cruel neglect as high devotion to God.
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  That is incredibly cruel. Jesus even quotes the exact
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  phrase they would use. What you would have gained from
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  me. It's like looking them in the
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  eye and admitting I know you have a right to this help.
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  I know you need this help, but my superior religion prevents me
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  from giving it. And that brings us to the
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  verdict in verse 6. Jesus looks at them and says, So
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  for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of
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  God. Made void.
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  That is a really strong phrase. It means to nullify, to empty it
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  of all authority, to render it totally ineffective.
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  Think about the absolute horror of this exchange.
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  These men felt guilty about unwashed hands, a rule they
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  totally made-up, but they felt totally righteous about starving
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  their own parents. Which is a direct violation of
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  God's clear moral law. They used a religious vow to
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  escape a basic moral duty. This is a huge insight for us
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  from a reformed perspective. We look at the Westminster
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  Confession, Chapter 19. The moral law is immutable.
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  Absolutely. The confession is completely
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  clear on this. The moral law binds all people
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  forever. No human counsel, no church
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  tradition, and certainly no personal vow can release a
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  Christian from the moral law. You cannot use ministry or
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  worship as an excuse to sin against your neighbor or your
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  family. God does not accept a gift that
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  is stolen from the obedience you owe Him in other areas.
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  Like Samuel told Saul in the Old Testament, to obey is better
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  than sacrifice. It really exposes the heart,
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  doesn't it? You could look super religious
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  on the outside, but if you are using that religion to dodge
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  what God actually told you to do, you're in big trouble.
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  You are in the worst kind of trouble.
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  And that leads us right into Section 4, the prophetic
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  diagnosis. Jesus puts a very specific label
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  on them. He calls them hypocrites.
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  And the word hypocriti in Greek is fascinating.
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  It was used for actors, stage players.
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  Like in a theatre. In Greek theatre, actors wore
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  large masks to portray different emotions or to play different
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  characters. Jesus is looking at them and
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  saying you are. We're all a mask.
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  Outwardly, the mask is rigorous, pious, strict.
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  It looks like a perfect St. But inwardly, behind the mask,
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  the heart is totally lawless and unloving.
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  He backs this up with Scripture too.
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  He quotes Isaiah 29, 13. This people honors me with their
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  lips, but their heart is far from me.
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  That distinction between the lips and the heart is the core
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  of the human problem. Lip service is cheap and easy.
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  Anyone can do it. You can say the right theology.
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  You can sing the Psalms perfectly.
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  You can pray loudly on the street corner so everyone hears
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  you. You can have the vocabulary of a
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  systematic theologian. You can even host our Reformed
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  deep dive, right? But the heart, the sea of the
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  will, the affections, the deep desires can be miles and miles
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  away. You can be geographically
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  standing in the center of the temple, but spiritually you are
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  in exile. And the result of that
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  separation between lips and heart is what Jesus calls vain
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  worship. In vain do they worship me.
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  That word vain means empty, futile, useless.
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  That is sobering. Think about that reality.
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  You can spend your entire life going to church, doing all the
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  right rituals, keeping all the community rules, and God can
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  look at all of it and say this counts for absolutely nothing.
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  Why? What makes it vain?
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  What breaks the worship? The verse tells us right there,
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  teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
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  This is the regulative principle of worship which is so dear to
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  our Reformed heritage. We worship God only as He is
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  commanded in Scripture. When you start adding human
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  inventions to the worship of God, even with really good
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  intentions, and you bind people's consciences to those
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  inventions as if they were God's actual law, you destroy the
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  worship. You are engaging in what Paul
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  calls will worship. You are worshipping your own
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  creativity and your own ideas, not the creator.
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  We need to bring this into the 21st century because it is so
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  easy to point fingers at Pharisees in robes from 2000
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  years ago. But what does teaching as
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  doctrines, the commandments of men, look like for us today?
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  It takes so many forms. On one side you have strict
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  legalism. Think of sex like Jehovah's
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  Witnesses, or Mormonism, or even really strict fundamentalist
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  circles that create new extra biblical laws.
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  Laws about dress codes or entertainment or what food you
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  can eat. Right.
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  And they say, if you don't do this our exact way, you aren't
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  right with God. They bind the conscience where
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  God has left the Christian free. But there's another side to this
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  coin, right? It's not just the strict rule
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  heavy stuff that falls into this trap.
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  No, not at all. You have the traditions of the
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  marketers, pragmatism. Oh, that is a big one.
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  The idea that we should do whatever works to draw a big
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  crowd. If we change the message to fit
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  the culture, that is a man made tradition superseding the
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  gospel. Or what about emotionalism?
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  Yes, confusing a manufactured emotional atmosphere with the
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  genuine presence of the Holy Spirit.
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  If we build a culture that says you haven't really worshipped
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  unless you cried during the bridge of the song, or unless
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  the lights were a certain way, we are teaching a commandment of
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  men. That is a tough pill to swallow
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  for a lot of modern churches, but it is necessary medicine.
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  We have to constantly ask ourselves, is this what God
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  actually commanded in His Word? Or is this just what we happen
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  to like? Precisely.
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  It requires constant, ongoing reformation.
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  Semper reformanda. We always have to be pruning our
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  traditions back to the Word of God.
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  Now, in the narrative, Jesus moves from this intense private
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  debate with the scholars to the public square.
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  This is Section 5, the public principle.
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  He calls the crowd over in verse 10 and says hear and understand.
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  He is summoning the regular everyday people to break free
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  from the expert opinion. He is telling them to think for
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  themselves. He is saying don't just blindly
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  listen to the guys with the fancy degrees from Jerusalem.
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  Use your mind. Think biblically about this.
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  He is democratizing the theology here for the common person.
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  And he gives them a parable, but it is really a parable of
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  biology. It is about human digestion.
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  It really is, he says. It is not what goes into the
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  mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth this
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  defiles a person. He is using a basic
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  physiological fact. Food goes in the mouth, goes to
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  the stomach and is eliminated in the latrine.
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  It is a purely biological process.
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  Physical jerk or the ceremonial uncleanness on your unwashed
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  hands cannot touch the human soul.
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  It doesn't ever reach the heart. He is completely dismantling
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  their whole religious worldview right in front of everyone.
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  The Pharisees thought defilement was like a virus that comes from
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  the outside in. If I touch a gentile, I catch
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  unholiness. Jesus says no, that's
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  biologically and spiritually impossible.
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  A piece of bread or a pork chop can't make you a Sinner.
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  Right. But then he pivots to the
• 19:42
  terrifying truth. What comes out of the mouth?
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  This defiles a person. He treats the mouth as a vent.
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  So if the mouth is the vent, the heart is the furnace spot.
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  On the mouth just speaks from the overflow of whatever is
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  burning in the heart. And this leads us to the
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  theological portion of our deep dive.
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  In Section 6 we have to talk about the doctrine of the heart.
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  Because what Jesus is describing here is the Reformed doctrine of
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  total depravity. Jeremiah 17 verse 9, right?
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  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.
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  That is the anchor text, and we should clarify the reformed
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  understanding of sin. Total depravity doesn't mean
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  everyone is as bad as they could possibly be at all times.
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  No, it doesn't mean utter depravity.
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  It means that every single part of us is affected by sin, our
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  mind, our will, our affections. We are not basically good people
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  who just get messed up by a bad society or a tough childhood.
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  We are not a clean glass that just gets some dirt smudged on
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  the outside. Jesus teaches that the mud is
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  already inside the glass. He says in the wider passage
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  that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery,
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  sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
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  These things are factory installed options in the human
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  heart from birth. They really are.
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  We do not have to learn how to sin.
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  You do not need a teacher to teach a toddler how to be
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  selfish or how to lie. It is completely natural.
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  We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we were
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  already sinners by nature. And that is exactly why the
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  ritual fails. This points to the total
• 21:13
  insufficiency of ritual. Why does hand washing fail to
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  make you righteous before God? Because it only cleans the skin.
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  It leaves the actual source of the pollution, the heart,
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  completely untouched. You can scrub your hands with a
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  brush until they are raw and bleeding, but you still have of
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  a heart capable of deep hatred, lust and greed.
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  This helps us understand our sacraments too, doesn't it?
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  Specifically Baptism? Yeah, we need to be crystal
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  clear here. Yes, water baptism is a covenant
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  sign and a seal. It is a direct command of
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  Christ. But the physical water itself
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  does not wash away original sin. This distinguishes us sharply
• 21:49
  from the Roman Catholic view of baptismal regeneration.
• 21:52
  Right. The water cleans the physical
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  body. It points to a reality, but the
• 21:56
  actual cleansing of the soul is an inward, invisible work of the
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  Holy Spirit. If you rely on the physical
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  water to save you, you are making the exact same
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  theological mistake as the Pharisees making sure their
• 22:09
  wrists were wet. So we have a massive problem.
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  The law functions as a mirror. It shows us our dirty face, or
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  rather our dirty heart. But Amir can't wash your face.
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  That is the classic law in gospel distinction.
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  The Pharisees tried to use the law and all their extra
• 22:25
  additions to it as a ladder to climb up to God.
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  Their thought was if I just wash enough, tithe enough, keep
• 22:31
  enough rules, I will be high enough to reach heaven.
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  Jesus uses the law, specifically the command to honor parents, as
• 22:38
  a hammer to crush that entire ladder.
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  He shows them you haven't even taken the first step, you are
• 22:42
  actually breaking the foundation.
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  So if the defilement is internal, we need an internal
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  solution. We need a heart transplant.
• 22:49
  We need regeneration, we need to be born again by the Spirit, and
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  because we cannot obey perfectly, we need an alien
• 22:55
  righteousness. We need a righteousness that
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  comes from completely outside of us.
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  This is where Christ comes into the picture.
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  He is the only remedy. Think about it.
• 23:05
  Jesus is the only one in this story, really the only one in
• 23:08
  all of human history, who truly perfectly honored the Father.
• 23:12
  He perfectly kept the moral law. Even on the cross, think about
• 23:16
  his dying moments in blinding pain, He looked down at John and
• 23:20
  said, Behold your mother entrusting Mary to his care.
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  He honored his mother even while bearing the sins of the world.
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  He kept the 5th commandment when it was the hardest possible
• 23:30
  moment to do so. He didn't use a Corbin vow to
• 23:33
  get out of it even though he was literally offering himself to
• 23:35
  God. That is so beautiful and through
• 23:38
  imputation his clean record is perfect.
• 23:41
  Obedience is credited to us by faith.
• 23:44
  We don't get clean by washing our hands in a special basin.
• 23:47
  We get clean by by being hidden in him.
• 23:49
  That is the gospel, that is the good news that cuts through all
• 23:52
  the tradition. OK, we are coming into Section
• 23:54
  7. Let's summarize and apply this.
• 23:56
  What are the stakes here for the listener?
• 23:58
  The stakes are incredibly high. We are talking about the
• 24:02
  authority of Scripture versus the tyranny of human tradition.
• 24:07
  When church tradition, whatever denomination you are in, rival
• 24:10
  Scripture, it always ends up voiding scripture.
• 24:14
  We have to be fiercely vigilant and.
• 24:15
  We have to be vigilant about modern Corbin, the subtle
• 24:19
  temptation to use religious language to excuse our own sin.
• 24:23
  Like saying I was too busy serving at the church to take
• 24:25
  care of my family. Or I was standing for objective
• 24:28
  truth, so I had to be cruel and harsh to that person online.
• 24:32
  That is hypocrisy masked a zeal and we also have to stop judging
• 24:35
  others by non biblical standards.
• 24:37
  That is externalism. Oh, they don't dress like us,
• 24:40
  they don't homeschool like us, they don't listen to the same
• 24:42
  music, so they must not be holy. That is Pharisee ISM, pure and
• 24:46
  simple. So let's talk directly to the
• 24:48
  listener. If you are listening to this
• 24:50
  deep dive right now and you are not a believer or maybe you were
• 24:53
  just checking this whole Christianity thing out.
• 24:55
  I would say this to you, stop trying to clean up your life
• 24:58
  from the outside. You can change your habits, you
• 25:00
  can change your friend group, you can adopt A really strict
• 25:04
  moral code. But if your heart is unchanged,
• 25:07
  you are just painting a tomb to look nice.
• 25:09
  You meet a new heart. And that only comes through
• 25:12
  repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
• 25:14
  You have to admit that the mud is inside the glass and ask the
• 25:17
  Great Physician to do the surgery.
• 25:19
  And to the believer listening, the one who's maybe been in
• 25:23
  church for decades. Beware of the Pharisee within
• 25:26
  your own chest. It is so easy to drift into
• 25:28
  preferring easy rules over costly love.
• 25:31
  It is so much easier to debate theology on the Internet than to
• 25:35
  actually love your difficult neighbor.
• 25:36
  It is easier to write a check to a ministry than to actively care
• 25:41
  for the poor in your city. Check your heart.
• 25:43
  Are you using your freedom in Christ as a clever cover for
• 25:46
  selfishness? And finally, to the church
• 25:48
  member, look closely at your corporate worship.
• 25:51
  Ask the hard questions of your leaders and yourself.
• 25:54
  Is what we are doing on Sunday morning actually prescribed by
• 25:57
  God in His Word? Or is it just what we've always
• 26:00
  done? Or is it just what makes us feel
• 26:01
  good? True worship is a faithful
• 26:04
  response to God's truth, not a weekly celebration of our own
• 26:07
  creative inventions. This has been a really heavy
• 26:10
  look at Matthew 15. It is scary to look in that
• 26:13
  mirror, but it is also incredibly liberating because it
• 26:17
  takes the crushing burden of saving ourselves off our
• 26:20
  shoulders and puts it entirely on Christ.
• 26:23
  Amen to that. As we close out this deep dive,
• 26:26
  I want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over.
• 26:30
  It is something of an irony that I think sums this whole
• 26:32
  narrative up beautifully. What is that?
• 26:34
  Think about the visual scene in Galilee.
• 26:36
  You have these Pharisees from Jerusalem.
• 26:38
  Their hands are perfectly scrubbed.
• 26:40
  They are ceremonially spotless. They look like absolute
• 26:43
  perfection on the outside. But their hearts are full of
• 26:45
  murder. They are actively plotting to
• 26:47
  kill the Son of God. Exactly.
• 26:49
  Then you have Jesus. They are pointing fingers,
• 26:51
  accusing him of being unclean, and yet he's the only one in
• 26:55
  that crowd pure enough to die for the sins of the world.
• 26:59
  That is the wild paradox of the gospel.
• 27:02
  The clean one willingly became sin for us, so that we, the
• 27:05
  unclean ones, might become the righteousness of God.
• 27:08
  Flee from the traditions of men. Rest of the commandments of God
• 27:11
  fulfilled in Christ. Thanks for joining us for this
• 27:14
  deep dive on Reformed thinking. We will catch you next time.